BANDWIDTH MANAGEMENT IN A HOME NETWORK

摘要

A node in home network serves as a coordinator to coordinate the use of bandwidth by clients that voluntarily cooperate with one another to share bandwidth on different network connections. Specifically the coordinator maintains information for these network connections that logically represents the different connections as independent pools of usable bandwidth. This bandwidth information also indicates the amount of bandwidth available for use from each pool. The coordinator receives advertisements from clients advertising tentative use of a specified amount of bandwidth drawn from each of one or more pools. Responsive to these advertisements the coordinator notifies clients regarding whether or not according to the bandwidth information the one or more pools from which their respective advertised uses would draw from each have the specified amount of bandwidth available. Finally the coordinator independently updates each pool to indicate that any bandwidth notified as being available from that pool is now unavailable.